Seven
by 2DaughtersOfAthena
Summary: Ron feels broken. Guilty. In love. Pained. After losing his brother, and the seemingly eternal lack of reciprocated feelings from Hermione. Oneshot.


**Ravenclaw HoH. Round 2, Standard, Houses Competition. Prompt: "Keep talking. I'm starting to believe you.", WC: 1390**

**Where Ron loves Hermione, but things just don't pan out that way. Muggledom AU. Based on two others songs additionally: 7 - Catfish and the Bottlemen, and P.A.S.T.A - Tom Rosenthal**

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Shrouded in smoke, Ron lifted the cigarette from between his teeth. She was calling again. And when she wasn't calling, he was wondering why she wasn't. Distance was not working in the slightest. Neither was the smoking - Sirius had been totally wrong about that. Even so, he wasn't going to stop doing either of them, lest they should start working at any point.

_Any time now_, he thought. No such luck.

He hadn't been outside in days. Honestly, he was afraid of seeing her, or even just seeing someone who looked like her. And not totally because he didn't want to see her - that was all he wanted. To breathe her in and make her laugh. Or to make her scowl at him, which seemed to be her favourite expression in response to his god-awful jokes. She hated his sailor's mouth. She hated his laziness.

And he loved her.

Ron took another long drag on the cigarette and coughed. It was slowly becoming more bearable. The motion and simplicity of it was almost comforting. He could just continue doing this. Lighting up, smoking it until the butt simmered, putting it out, and repeating all over. It distracted him for a while - this method - but then his mind was back to wandering. He wished he could say that alcohol helped, but that would be a lie. A bigger lie than the ones he'd told her.

_I was busy._

_I got caught up in work stuff._

_I completely forgot, I'm sorry._

He wasn't busy. He wasn't working much, and when he was, he wasn't as totally engaged in it as he'd made it sound. He could never forget when they were supposed to be meeting up. The thing was, he wished that he did. Ron Weasley wished he had reasons to avoid Hermione Granger.

He wanted to lose days. Weeks. Months. Years. As long as it took to forget the pain.

Sirius had said that the alcohol and the smoking would help. That was why Ron had unashamedly bought the packs of cigarettes and whiskey. Although, Sirius had said a lot of things when he'd been invited to Sunday lunch at the Burrow two weeks ago. Like how he thought it was nice that the Weasleys still set a place for Fred. Fred, the brother who had been killed in a car accident six months ago. A car Ron had been driving.

In reality, did Sirius know anything? Ron doubted it. The man couldn't admit to being in love with his best friend.

Not that Ron could talk much on that matter. It would be hypocritical.

Darkness was creeping across the apartment, slowly filling the room with shadows instead of the sunset glow. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to see with the lights off. No doubt that Hermione would call him again, and again, and again until she was determined enough to knock his door down and break the distance that he had so perfectly created. He needed to be alone. He couldn't do whatever it was that she wanted from him. He couldn't be anything more than exactly who he was. Lost.

Ron hadn't really struggled like this before - a weight crushing down on his chest, choking him; shadows in his mind pushing him closer to the edge. He didn't know what was over the edge, he only knew he wanted to be as far from it as possible. Though, it seemed he was just inching closer to it. Panic was something else he was feeling. Guilt, too. And incomprehensible sadness.

As predicted, less than half an hour later, Hermione was pounding her fist against his front door, calling for his attention through the letterbox. He didn't even need to move. Within seconds and the light clicking of the locks, she was trampling through the doorway, her hair wet from rain he hadn't noticed, wearing a ludicrously bright raincoat. Damn her for knowing where the spare key was hidden.

"You said you would call." Her voice was flat, but he knew that she was annoyed. "A week ago. Are you _okay?_" She approached him on the sofa, where he was lying backwards, face turned towards her. Words completely failed him, and he wished it was out of choice. Lungs blackened with smoke, mind altered with alcohol, he could barely think the thoughts that ought to have been swirling around his head.

It was comical. In a way, he had been wishing to see her for so long. Thinking he could handle picking up the phone and holding a normal conversation. These were not realistic thoughts, however. How could he have a conversation with her, how could anything be normal even again? He craved a connection between them. Something more.

"Leave," he said, then bringing the cigarette to his lips again, aching. "I'll call you tomorrow."

Any postponement of this confrontation was necessary. If that meant he had to push Hermione away for the rest of his life, he could live with that - albeit painfully. It could be planned out. Measures could be taken to slip away from her, to fall away from friendship, and to hopefully fall out of love with her. That third one wasn't as important, though it was inconvenient for his stability.

Of course, she didn't listen to him. She never would, because she'd seen him. She had seen what state he was in. Slumped body in a wrinkled shirt, stinking of booze and ash.

"You're getting bad again, aren't you?" she asked, though they both knew it wasn't really much of a question. It was an obvious truth. Hermione leant closer to him, reaching out for his face; it was slick with sweat. "You should have told me. I could help, like last time."

Ron flinched away from her touch, sitting up. The cigarette sizzled as he butted it out into the ashtray.

"I'm going to talk to Sirius. Honestly, smoking? His suggestion, I gather." Hermione laughed shortly, without humour. "Narcotics are not a way to assuage your guilt, or your sadness.. They're not a way out, Ron." He didn't want to look at her, didn't want to see her worrying face or her shining eyes and how her hair caught in the burgeoning moonlight. "You can't do this alone. I want to help."

"Why?" he demanded, looking her in the eyes. "What can you possibly gain from this?"

"Because I love you," she said, which just made him groan in despair and sink back to the sofa and the almost-comfort of whiskey. "Because we're friends, and I'm supposed to help you. I care about you. "

"Keep talking. I'm starting to believe you."

She frowned then. "I don't understand."

Ron shook his head, a sudden cold blanketing him. He shivered.

"You love me."

"Ron…"

"Hermione."

Her face was too sad. It was crumpling, creasing, leaking. Tears slid down her cheeks. They'd had this conversation before, or at least what seemed like the same conversation. About love, and about them. It just was that they were not compatible, at least not for her for many reasons. Their _friendship would be ruined_ was her favourite. And it would be _weird for Harry_ was a close second. Not proper reasons, in Ron's opinion. But he would never push her, especially not now while his love would be so toxic. He would never ask her to love him.

Love was painful. It made his bones ache. The heart was just one large sore. Fear was just as real.

As much as Ron wanted to switch it all off - humanity, emotion, love and fear - it was impossible. More than impossible with the woman of his eternal struggle inches from him, claiming her love for him, wanting to help him. He wanted to be totally vacant, to be seven hours behind everything else, and to live without love. Sirius had said that the alcohol would abate the agony, that the smoking would be a distraction. Neither was true. Sirius was a liar.

Words could not explain how Ron Weasley had loved Hermione Granger his entire life.

But he needed another year alone.

He needed time to heal.

Almost answering unspoken hopes, Hermione stood up and announced that she was going to make tea. It was a start, because even a second to himself might help him become a little more of himself.

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**Thanks for reading!**


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